"39 Claims That a Deal With Iran Was Imminent" ... Is Trump a 'Boy Who Cried Wolf'?

[Financial News] Since war broke out with Iran, U.S. President Donald Trump has said a deal to end the conflict was imminent a total of 39 times.

According to CNN on the 9th local time, Trump had publicly mentioned the possibility of a "deal" at least 37 times since the Iran war began on Feb. 28.
On March 23, less than a month after the war started, Trump claimed that he had "reached almost every point of agreement." Iran denied it, but the next day Trump again insisted that Iran desperately wanted talks.
On March 25, he said Iran "really, really wants to make a deal," and at a Cabinet meeting the following day, he said Iran was "begging for a deal." CNN noted that, despite Trump's claims, Iran had refused to negotiate for two and a half months.
On April 7, when Trump agreed to a two-week ceasefire with Iran, he said the talks had made "substantial progress" and that "two more weeks" would be needed before the deal was finalized and implemented. A week later, in an interview with Fox Business News on April 15, he said the negotiations were "in the final stages" and that he believed they were "very close."
Since then, Trump has continued to say that talks with Iran were effectively over. On April 16, he said the chances of reaching a deal with Iran were "very high." The next day, he made three separate remarks, saying Iran had "agreed to everything," that a deal would be reached "within a day or two," and that there appeared to be "almost no major differences."
He also told multiple media outlets on May 23 that only final confirmation remained. Five days later, in an interview with Lara Trump, he said he was "very close to a very good deal." On the 7th of this month, he told Axios that he was "very close to a deal," stoking expectations several more times. But negotiations remain stalled for now.

After reporting that Trump had mentioned the possibility of a deal 37 times, there were two more reports of similar remarks. On the 8th local time, Trump attended Game 3 of the NBA Finals at Madison Square Garden (MSG) in New York and reportedly claimed that talks with Iran had entered the final stage and that a deal would take two to three days.
In a roughly one-minute phone interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) that same day, Trump also said of the Iran talks, "We are on the verge of signing a very strong and good deal," adding, "There will be no nuclear weapons, nothing of the sort" in the new agreement. Including those remarks, the number of times he has said a deal is imminent rises to 39.
CNN assessed that "Trump is either delusional, trying to stabilize the financial markets, or simply hoping things will work out the way he wants," adding that "this is no longer a claim that should be taken seriously."
bng@fnnews.com Kim Hee-sun Reporter